My wife and I are looking into starting a language school. I've put together an extensive but not exhaustive to-do list. To do list: Company name - work in progress domain name - needs more research website - professional design with search optimisation for Google and Baidu email - Gmail or domain? branding - logo design, draft and commission Marketing material - flyers and business cards advertising - flyers, canvassing, Facebook groups, WeChat venue hire - it is surprisingly difficult to get in touch with venues Public Liability Insurance - for individual teachers until the business grows CRB & DBS checks - seems straight forward Market research - facebook groups and canvasing Targeted advertising - Facebook and Instagram? Program development - specific to venue and demographic So ... am I missing anything obvious? Domain and website: I have my own website with WordPress which I use as a project portfolio for self-promotion. It is suitable for its purpose. For this site, I'm thinking a .co.uk domain is most appropriate. I some research but only found people complaining about hikes in domain fees and poor service. I assume I need to pay an annual domain and hosting fee which can but from the same site. Then I can either commission a web designer from Fiver or Taobao. Should I use WP, WIX or design from scratch? I'm not finding decent comparisons between cost and benefits as they seem to be all Wix ad-sites. It seems that the monthly cost of these services will add up. As it isn't a storefront, I'm not sure it is the best option given the relatively high running cost vs the upfront cost of contracting a web designer.
I'd recommend using your domain name rather than generic gmail even if it is gmail providing the service. I find it looks very unprofessional when I deal with "professionals" who only have gmail email. Sorry cannot help with the rest.
This ^, it looks much more professional using a domain email than a hotmail / gmail address, and given how little domains / emails cost now there's no reason not to. And another +1 for good luck dude, wish you guys all the best!
Very easy. Basically the tools to create an email usually come for free with the webhosting, when you use it it spits out some login details you can then plug into eM client, Thunderbird, Outlook or whatever you use.
Any recommendations for webhosting? It would likely be cheaper if it includes domain registration and should support email. I don't know much about this area. Is it better to have the domain and hosting together or separate?
I'd go with something relatively simple at one of the more established hosts, for example: https://www.hostinger.co.uk/vps-hosting I've had no problems with them.
Do I need a VPS service? I'm not expecting many concurrent users. It will be mainly for registration and payment of classes.
